feature photo: Katie Rey
Guitar maestro Nick Millevoi has been feeling a little nostalgic lately. It’s been the driving fervor that’s led him to create his “Ennio Morricone-meets-Neil Young-meets-Sun Ra” Desertion Trio project and he’s reeled off four albums under that moniker.
Grassy Sound is an offshoot of Millevoi’s Desertion Trio … well actually, Desertion Trio’s Twilight Time (2019), where that combo’s delicious mix of surf music, psych blues, Western movie soundtracks featured guest keyboard spots from Stabinsky. Grassy Sound, like Desertion Trio, uses instrumental music of the Mad Men era as a starting point and it ends up getting Millevoi-ized into a tornado of modern-day effects and the guitarist’s signature gumption that is the common ingredient in all of his widely-varying projects. But Grassy Sound is also a deeper exploration of the rapport he has with Stabinsky, who has solid guerilla music credentials himself as a member of the Meat Puppets and Mostly Other People Do The Killing.
In fact, two Puppeteers, Cris and Curt Kirkwood, lend vocals to the album’s only cover, “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” bringing it full circle for the cowpunk band that recorded their own version for their debut album forty years earlier (Meat Puppets drummer Derrick Bostrom is also on hand). The Kirkwoods mellowed out quite a lot from the guttural rendition they tore through back in ’82, but that fits in nicely with the chill attitude Millevoi and Stabinsky are spreading around here.
Elsewhere, Grassy Sound plays Millevoi originals and “Flitzer” (video above) illustrates best what Grassy Sound is about. This rollicks along as a pleasant surf rock tune that would make the perfect soundtrack to a Quentin Tarantino movie. That is, until they pause and launch into freak mode right in the middle of it. Millevoi keeps dropping part of the riff into the chaos, just to make the clash as vivid as possible.
“Skylark” has that lounge-y vibe but that doesn’t prevent the two from stretching out; Millevoi in particular is able to slip in a load of chops into this easygoing tune. Actually, ‘easygoing’ is a quality that can describe any track on here, but the two never slack off when it comes their acumen. “New Harbor Light Boogie” is bop-like in its note progression, the guitar and keyboard (first organ, then electric piano) recite the extended figure in perfect unison at a breezy tempo, then one more time rapidly to end it.
Bostrom makes it a temporary trio for “Astronaut” and “Lu Fran” and on top of those grooves, Millevoi and Stabinsky trade some slick licks (actually, Millevoi dubs in bass guitar, so it’s really a quartet sound).
Nick Millevoi and Rob Stabinsky are plenty capable of making serious music but Grassy Sound is about them having fun and anyone hearing The Sounds of Grassy Sound can’t help but to join in that fun.
The Sounds of Grassy Sound is out on July 8, 2022 from Destiny Records. Get it here on Bandcamp.
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